144 AMERICAN FISHES. 



head is narrow above, with a moderately wide frontal bone, and form- 

 ing one-fifth of the length, excluding the caudal. 



The eyes are large, and situated a little more than a diameter of 

 the orbit from the tip of the snout, and nearly thrice as far from the 

 edge of the gill-plate. The nostrils are placed midway between the 

 orbit and the snout. The snout is blunt when seen in front, but its 

 profile is more acute. The mouth has a small orifice, but when shut, 

 its angles are depressed. 



The jaws and tongue are furnished with a few teeth, which are too 

 minute to be readily seen by the naked eye, and too slender to be very 

 perceptible to the finger. The vomer and palate are quite smooth. 



Of the gill-covers, the preoperculum is sharply curved, and rather 

 broad ; its width, in the middle, equalling the height of the suboper- 

 culum. The operculum measures one-third more vertically than it 

 does horizontally ; while on the contrary, the suboperculum is twice as 

 long as it is high. The interoperculum is triangular. The branchial 

 arches have each a single row of erect subulate rakers, a quarter of an 

 inch long, and rough on their inner surfaces. The pharyngeal bones 

 are inconspicuous and toothless. 



The scales are large, irregularly orbicular, and about half an inch 

 in diameter, with a bright pearly lustre. 



Color, in the shade, bluish gray on the back, lighter on the sides, 

 and white on the belly, giving place to a nacry and iridescent pearly 

 lustre in a full light. Cheeks, opercula, and irides, thickly covered 

 with nacre. 



Fins : branchiostegous rays eight, dorsal fifteen, pectoral sixteen, 

 ventral eleven, anal fifteen, caudal nineteen and seven-sevenths. The 

 adipose fin is rather large, and situated opposite the termination of the 

 anal. The caudal is forked, and spreads widely. 



It is, in short, a very beautiful fish, and no less useful than it is 

 beautiful and delicious, affording the principal subsistence to several 

 Indian hordes, and being the main reliance of many of the fur posts 

 for eif^ht or nine months of the year, the supply of other articles of 

 diet being scanty and casual. 



I shall rejoice to learn hereafter that it may turn out, as I more 

 than suspect it may, as great a source of pleasure to the angler, as it 

 is of profit to the fur-trader and the voyagem-. 



